1. Technical Field
This invention relates to clothes line assemblies and, more particularly, to a portable clothesline assembly for vehicles.
2. Prior Art
On extended camping trips of more than a few days, people often find it necessary to launder their clothes. However, many recreational vehicles, or campers, are not provided with any means for laundering or drying clothes. Although the clothes can be washed in the sink or a small plastic basin, drying them is still a problem. Thus, people are often required to suspend wet clothes from tree limbs or other insufficient structures.
Various proposed clothesline devices are potentially adaptable for use in camper vehicles. One example shows a rod compressed between opposite walls of a shower stall. Clotheslines are stretched between brackets at opposite ends of the rod. If this device is sized for use in the very small shower in a camper vehicle, it will be so short that it can hang just a few small items of clothing. Another example shows a chain hung between two mounting strips attached on opposite walls. Although it can be adapted for mounting in a camper, such as in the shower, the chain will have to be so short that it will be of little practical use. The metal construction also has a tendency to rust when exposed to wet clothes, which renders the device useless.
Finally, yet another prior art example shows a portable clothesline device with a pair of clamps for clamping onto a window sill. It includes a complicated mechanism for deploying and retracting clotheslines between a pair of arms. If it is sized for mounting on the narrow windows of a camper, the arms will be very close together, so that the clotheslines will be too short to be of much use. Apart from their insufficient size, these examples share another crucial disadvantage among themselves. They are all designed to be employed on the interior of a camper or recreational vehicle, where clothes would take longer to dry than if hung on the exterior and in the sun.
Accordingly, a need remains for a portable clothesline assembly for vehicles in order to overcome the above-noted shortcomings. The present invention satisfies such a need by providing a portable clothesline assembly that is easy and convenient to use, and provides the user with considerable time savings. Such a portable clothesline assembly eliminates the need to place wet clothes on awning supports or suspending them from tree limbs. The assembly provides a considerable amount of space in order to hang towels, bathing suits, and other clothes simultaneously in direct sunlight. This advantageously saves the user's time and ensures that the items are properly dried or aired out.